The poet, and other poems

Front matter

4 .4^ >,

POEMS.

Ain)

Scene IV 149 Miscellaneous Poems

The People 193

The Soldier's Shroud 1-G

Emancipation in the District of Cohxmbia 198

Tlie American Eagle 200

vn

VIII CONTtJNTS.

Tempter and Tempted 203

Let the Saints be Glad in Heaven 205

The Stoic Soul's Defiance 207

Chant of the Soul 209

The Eeal Prayer 211

The Ruined Church. 21.3

Beautiful Sleep 217

' Into the Depths of Hades 218

Shame on the Coward Souls 219

Endure 221

Wendell Phillips 222

The Coming Time 224

The Trial 225

They Tell me Thou art Beautiful 226

Serenade — Good-Night 228

" Ye have done it unto me " 229

Bury me under the Greenwood Tree 231

The Morning Land 232

Devotion 233

Waiting at the Gate 234

The Soul of Song 236

Take me Home 237

Who are the Beautiful ? 238

Hark to the Waves that roll 239

Mountains 239

CONTENTS. IX

EARLY POEMS.

The Dying Warrior , „ 247

The "Wanderer's Eeturn 248

The Days of Old : 251

Dark Hours 253

Musings 255

The Ship 257

A Voice from France, 1848 259

Thoughts on Leaving Home 2G1

The Mourner 262

Disease 263

To a Bunch of Violets in my Sick Eoom 266

They Bid me Nerve my Drooping Soul 267

Sing to Me 270

To my Sister on her Eighteenth Birthday 271

Lament of the Jewish Captives 276

Address of Henry the Fourth to his Army 277

To One who Called me Ungrateful •. 278

Despair 280

" Suffer, yet be Strong" 281

Recovery from Sickness 282

' Only for One" 283

Lines written in a School-room 285

Songs from Spirit Land 286

looming 288

The unexpected and untimely death of Miss A. W. Sprague, in the summer of 1862, brought a pang of sorrow to many hearts. And there are many still, scattered up and down through fifteen States of the Union, who hold her in loving remembrance, though, in the whirlpool of revolution and civil war that has since convulsed the nation, many a fair reputation has gone down to speedy oblivion. During a brief public career she had travelled extensively, and had everywhere made for herself troops of friends. From Maine to Missom-i, from Montreal to Baltimore, there are earnest, truth-loving men and women who will not soon forget the impression they received, as well from her conversation as her public discourses.

Miss Sprague was chiefly known to the world as a trance lecturer under what claimed to be spirit-influence. In this capacity she had for several years been an active laborer. A pioneer advocate of the Sphitual Philosophy in New England, she was also a devoted friend of every philanthropic and reformatory enterprise of the time, ranking with the best of her class, — with Emma Hardinge, Cora Hatch, and a few others, — in catholicity of spuit, in large views, and earnest, telling speech. Although speaking in the interest of a faith generally unpopular, and involved in no shght degree in crudities, extravagance, and quackery, she was herself neither fool nor fanatic. And while the reality of spiritual intercourse, the nearness of the angel-world to ours, the certain assurance of unending, everprogressive life beyond the grave, were themes upon which she often dwelt, she loved most to forget all party watchwords, and, ignoring shallow distinctions of sect or class, push out into the broad realms of truth, regarding hearer and theme

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alike from the stand point simply of enlightened humanity. In this spirit, she did not fail to criticise with severity any attempt or tendency she discovered among Spiritualists, to erect the new teachings into a dogma or a ritual. She was wont to speak of these teachings as a spiritual philosophy, and chose to regard them as constituting a new dispensation of religious truth to man. A movement now in its infancy, but destined to extend itself far and wide till it encompassed the earth. Though an advance from all previous revelations, the present was but the dawn of the New Era. It was the day of small things, — mediums were imperfect, conditions unfavorable. Like the seers of all ages, she saw and reported that there are new and fresher gospels waiting to be given, whenever mankind shall be fitted to receive them. She caught glimpses of that illimitable ocean of truth, unfathomable by human thought, but which some bold Columbus shall yet disclose to man.

This does but herald brighter things to come, Before whose beauty shall the earth sit dumb.

And known at last shall be God's great unknown, And man, unshamed, shall claim it as his own.

The Poet, Scene III.

She taught a perennial inspiration — a stream ever gushing forth from the eternal fountain, whether called for or not. It seemed a great poverty of manhood in the human race, that it should have had no model man for eighteen hundred years. There was need of a great religious teacher to do for this age what Jesus did for his. And might it not be that we had impaired our ability to receive new revelations, by looking too closely and too implicitly upon the old ? She said : We find the fresh footsteps of Deity always in our path, but such is our traditional timidity that we dare not trust the evidence of our senses, and recoo^nize them as such, till we go and compare them with the footprints of the olden time. But while we are busy thus comparing them the great God has himself passed on.

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Her influence as a public speaker was remarkable. Always deeply in earnest, elegant and forcible in lier style of speaking, equally removed from extravagance on tbe one hand and lameness on the other, she rose not unfrequently to a chaste and noble eloquence. She spoke habitually upon the highest themes, with a scope and vigor of thought, and a fertihty of illustration rarely equalled. Her speaking was an inspiration. She possessed that power of the true orator — of uplifting those she addressed into higher regions of thought and feeling. Some of her periods were very grand, and will not soon be forgotten by those who heard them. Swayed by a pure moral enthusiasm, as she advanced with her subject, the hearer was borne along upon the tide of a robust and persuasive speech. Her manner, meanwhile, partook of the elevation of her thought, and enforced it by appropriate and vigorous action. There was nothmg of rant or theatric display, no sacrifice of womanly delicacy ; but a simple yet queenly dignity in excellent keeping with the discourse. No studied elegance of posture or movement, but a native majesty of presence, the natural expression of the body possessed and animate with the informing soiil. In Vermont, which was her earliest lecturmg field, her hold upon the public mind was very deep. Multitudes who never distinctively accepted spiritual intercourse as a fact, were wont to listen to her with unaffected delight. Though prized most in places where she was best known, yet, wherever she went, ishe was sure of overflowing houses. It was common to see people at her meetings in the smaller towns, who had come eight, ten, or fifteen miles to hear " the preaching woman."

To the esteem in which she was held for her merits as a lecturer, was added, at least in the vicinity of her home, the interest that attached to the story of her life. Her ^^outh had been one long struggle with poverty and suffering. Remarkable from her earliest years for an eager, insatiable thirst after knowledge, the circumstances of her family forbade any save the most limited gratification to this her rulnig desire. Tliere was a large family of

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children, and the old tragedy of Want and Have was claily enacted in the home. Sickness came there, — a frequent guest. Mr. Sprague, the father, a man gifted by nature with uncommon powers of mind, had long been the victim of an uncontrollable appetite for strong drink. x\chsa, -bis six child, was a sprightly girl, fond of being much in the open air. Opportunities for education were scanty, even for a sparsely-populated country district. A common school of some sort held its sessions during six months of the year. Thither she went, whenever the domestic affaii-s of the family would permit, until she was twelve, when she began teaching, first in a family in an adjoining town, and the succeeding summer in a common school. Before this, and while she was yet a pupil, she had been used by her teachers to conduct lower classes in school. From thence till she was twenty, she was teaching the larger part of the time when her health was sufficient, having taught in all eighteen terms. Meanwhile, she attended at an academy for a term and a half, which completed the small debt she owed to school education. In private she had doubtless improved every resource to extend the boundaries of her knowledge. There were no circulating libraries within reach, and little access to good books ; but she must have missed no opportunity during this period, of borrowing from individuals whenever practicable. Still, all that could be obtained in this way must have come far short of satisfying that hungry intellect. Society of persons of superior cultivation there was little or none, though the father, in his better hours, felt an honest pride in his daughter, and knew how to encourage her aspiring and ambitious nature,

But now there came an experience so dark and sorrowful as to •:i ike all her previous life, checkered by clouds as it was, seem but pure sunshine in comparison. Over-mastering disease laid its heavy hand upon this rare and promising girl. She entered upon the terrible discipline of a seven years' sickness — a period full of^igony and gloom, but destined to prove in its results of

INTRODUCTORY. XV

exceeding import to her futm-e life. Gradual in i* s Rpproiiches as the shtides of night flill upon the earth, her disease knew no pause till its victim lay helpless before its ravages. It was of scrofulous natui'e, and fii'st settled in her joints, rendering them almost useless. Medical assistance brought no relief For a while the youthful hopes of the sufferer bore up cheerily, and through the aid of crutches she continued to teach for a term or two. But every resoui'ce faihng, as month after month passed on and she grew steadily worse, hope seemed to fade away and give place to a settled despair. Not the despair' that trembles i\[ tlie ^^ew of death, but the hopelessness of living on, of dragging out life in perpetual suffering and helplessness. The " Early Poems " printed in this volume, and mostly written dming the earUer stages of her sickness, sufficiently portray the state of lier feelings at this period, and the load of anguish that weighed down her spirit.* Every stanza seems measured by the heavy heartthrobs of the writer. Before her sickness her aspii'ing mind had doul^tless planned for itself a broad field of future activity and usefulness, and it was with difficulty that she could bring herself to renounce at once and forever all that young imagination had painted in f invest colors.

But as the darkness deepened to midnight, and tl-e last hope went out with the passage of weary years, she prayed wildly for death ; — begged' and implored that she might not lopger cumber the earth, a burden to her friends and to herself ' ' Speak not oi dreaded death," — she afterwards wrote, — "I wooed the stern Archer as a friend. And yet he passed me by, and, passing, pierced some happy heart that loved to live. I might have borne the pain (perhaps I might), but oh, the dreaiy thought of living in vain ! Year after year to come and go, and j^-et to leave no trace that I had ever been, save added wrinkles on my mother's brow ! To live, and yet not live ; to die, and yet not die ; to feel the restless thought, the vvish to do, the yearning for some active life forever struggling iu my Foid, and_ yet to

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be a captive in my prison-cell ! no power to save, and none to roll away the stone from that dark, living tomb, and set me free ! " Her spirit panted for action. She could not bear and yet be still, but wildly wrestled with her fate in those sad hoiu's. Her disease, though painful in all its stages, was of a natm-e that left the mind free to range at will and contemplate the activities of Jife, which, in ^dew of her enfeebled physical condition, seemed to mock her own blighted hopes and crushed aspirations. Cut off from all bodily exercise, her mental faculties became preternaturally active, so that it' was an agony to think, and at the same time impossible not to do so. Waves of thought and feeling came and went, and swept her soul like ocean tides. As the billows of the sea when raised by tempests, rush to the land, and with then* long roll beat the shores, so the waves of thought, she said, seemed to lash the shores of her being, and beat, beat, against the frail bark of life till it seemed ready to go to pieces before tfteir evergi^eatening force.

But relief came at last to her sufferings, and in a way little exi:ipcted. In " The Angel's Visit," at the end of this volume, her own pen has described the manner of her release, and the aims and purposes with which she went forth once more to mingle in the active world. This is not the place to enter upon a philosophical discussion as to the nature of the occult influence there operating, nor would it be profitable, since the subject nmst be finally left, as it still exists in the mind of the writer, an unsolved enigma. Whatever may have been the agency in her cure, — and wonderful it certainly was, — no one who knew her, ever imputed dishonesty to her, or intention to deceive. It required some severe mental struggles before she was persuaded fully to trust the mysterious influence that was more and more clearly manifesting itself But in it was her only hope ; and following out a course of treatment prescribed by the invisible intelligences, she was in six months restored to comparative health. Meanwhile, It began to be intunated to her by the same influence, that

INTRODUCTORY. XVII

there was an important public work waiting for her to do, — a work for humanity requhed of her in return for the service she had herself received ; that this was the result had in view from the beginning. She was put in traming for pubhc speaking, detailed instructions being given, and exercises prescribed, such "as it is difficult to. suppose could proceed from her own mind. Her thoughts were at the same time turned strongly towards religious and ethical subjects, and, as her health improved, she was moved to wiite frequently upon the same. Gradually it was broken to her that she must take the field as a public speaker. At first she had a strong repugnance to anything of the kind ; but finally, after some sacrifice of feeling, she accjuiesced in whiit many considerations, and especially gratitude, seemed to demand of her. A decision that she never regretted. This was in the spring of 1854. She gave her first pubhc discourse at South Keading, Vermont, on the 16th of July of the same year. From that day onward till her death, at Plymouth, Vermont, July Gth, 1862, her life was fiill of busy work. What that work was we need not rehearse here, nor tell the joy she found in her new vocation. With a brief allusion to a few of the Icss iamiliar aspects of her career as a lectm-er, we will pass to a conclusion of these remarks. Those who knew her best, can testify with what wilhng earnestness she labored, speaking, much of the time, from thi-ee to five or six tunes a week, and traveUing constantly, in order to give evening lectm^es in places cut of the way of her regular Sunday appointments. There was always a large demand upon her services, and she was reluctant to refuse calls so long as there was a prospect of doing any good.

From the beginning of her public life, she had felt an earnest de -he to speak to the inmates of the Prisons. Her sympatliies were strongly moved in behalf of this class of persons, often quite as much the victims of society, as characterized by any special depra^^ty of nature. At Providence and Philadelphia, permission was obtained at her solicitation, to address the ^)nsoners, h

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and a standing invitation extended to renew her visits at any time. At Boston she was less successful in getting access to the- Charlestown State Prison, though her efforts were seconded by several members of the legislature, then in session. In Philadelphia, she went several times to the penitentiary, for private con« fcrence with the females confined there. Sometimes she came away quite disheartened from these visits. "It is sad," she wrote, " to look upon such an abandoned class of people, sad to to see their condition, both of mind and body ; and I sometimes wonder Vhy I wish to go among them, when, at best, one can do so httle good. But somehow my soul cries out for the pri\dlege of doing that little, at the expense of the dark scenes that the lifting of the cm-tain must reveal to me." Wherever she journeyed, she was accustomed to give frequent benefit-lectures, the proceeds to be apphed for the rehef of the poor, and for other charitable purposes. Many also were the cases of individual destitution in cities, that she sought out and helped to relieve. She had herself drank deep of poverty's cup, from earliest childhood, and knew well its bitter taste. Meeting once at Troy, N. Y., Laura Edmonds, daughter of the judge, giving free sittings for the investigation of spiritual manifestations, she is seized with regret that she cannot go about the country lecturing in like manner without money and without price. " But, ah me ! I am poor," she says. " Still, I never have a stated price, but leave it to the means or generosity of the people to do by me as they think proper. I should like it if I had money, that I might do more good. Yet I cannot make Spiritualism a stepping-stone to wealth ; it seems like debasing the most beautiful things."

It is easy to see that her sympathies widened year by year, and her mind liberalized as she came into larger contact with the world. She was too large-natured to live shut up to the influence of a single idea. She wannly interested herself in the cliief re^ forms and humanitary movements of the day. Her discom'ses, while losing nothing of their former spirit, gi-ew more direct and

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practical in their character, as from a broader observation she studied the actual condition of society and its deepest needs. She became acrpiaiuted, either personally or througli tlieir writings, with many of the leading minds of the age, — with the strong, earnest soul of Theodore Parker, with the quaint wisdom of Emerson, with tii3 impassioned poetry of Mrs. Browning, whose Aurora Leigh was long a book of especial significance to her. Her poems, written both before and since the outbreak of the rebelhon, attest the patriotic interest she always felt in republican ideas. That last printed before her death, she inscribed to the Union 'Volunteers, dedicating it, with her deepest gratitude and earnest prayers, " to the brave and loyal hearts offering then' Hves at the Shi-ine of Liberty."-

As respects the Poems contained in this volume, little needs be said hero. The world will judge of the degree of merit they possess. They can never, of course, have that interest for a stranger, as for those who knew the author, and saw the excellence of her character in public and private. To such, these poems, though genuine products of the writer's individuality, are but chance bubbles on the stream of a life, deep, pure, earne.^t, and strong. Characteristic, and suggestive of mucli, they are but the chip of granite from the top of Mount Yv'ashington. And there is reason to believe that these are ununportant, as compared wit'h what would ha\'e been produced had the author been spared to reach the fiill maturity of her powers. Though from an early age she had occasionally attempted the WTiting of poetry, she liad but just entered upon her career as an author. She was writing extensively, with no special view to publication, and regarded these productions for the most part as experiments and exercises in the art of wiiting. They should bo judged, therefore, somewhat as the juvenile ofiI)rts of authors are estimated, — not only for what they are, but for the better promise they contain. The rapidity with which they were composed, is not the least remarkable fea- (ure in ihoh" history. " The^oet,

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4,600 lines, was finished within three weeks from the time of its commencement, and actually required not more than seventy-two consecutive hours in being committed to paper. " The Child of Destiny," a di-amatic poem of about 3,000 lines, still unpublished, was completed in five and a half days from its commencement. Such facility in composition, it is thought, is hardly surpassed in . the whole history of literary composition. From two to three hundi*ed lines were usually thrown off at an evening's sitting. Sometunes, in a state of high mental exaltation, she would walk the room, dictating for an amenuensis to write, whose ready pencil not unfrequently found it difficult to keep pace with her rapid recitation. ' This extraordinary development of writing, began in January, 1862, as she was recovering from a severe illness at Oswego, N. Y. Her health continued slowly to improve until the first of May following, when she returned to her home in Vermont, as it proved, to die. Her physical strength was still low ; but she continued to write, when engaged with a long poem, often at the rate of five hundred lines per day. She seemed impelled by an irresistible power to undertake new projects, and then to finish what had been begun. On the 10th of June, in a letter to a friend, she said that her health was decidedly better, that she was getting much engaged in writing, that it rested her, and tha^ she enjoyed it as a pastmie. Near the end of the month she rode to Rutland and back in a carriage, from which time she declined rapidly, until a violent brain fever set in, and, on the 6th of July, the last earthly change had taken place.

Her death seems untimely, and many found it hard to acquiesce in an event that removed one so young, so active, and so anxious to do good, while the world needed her so much. This feeling was heightened by the impression that she needlessly overworked herself, and did not pmdenlly husband her strength. She used up life too rapidly, in violation of physiological law. She knew no moderation in work, and did not often take counsel of pniden?e, so long as there was a calj^upon her services. It seems

INTRODUCTORY. xxi

scarcely less than madness to attempt such mental lalior as she performed during the last months of her hfe, and with physical stren2:th so much reduced. Indeed, there is reason to think, that from the time of her fii'st sickness, before her mediumship, her mental activity had heen excessive, and incompatible with a permanently liealthy condition of body. Various causes conspned to prolong this tendency, till it was manifest at last as an inflamed intellectuahsm. Be "tiais as it may, she died after all, perhaps, ui a way that it befitted her to die. To put a restramt upon the mobility of the mind's powers, it must be remembered, is precisely the tiling that people of her mtensely active temperament find it hardest to do. Could such an eager, ambitious soul bear to outlive its activity, bear to see its faculties fail one by one, and smk into imbecility and second childishness ? Does not the eagle thift is wont to mount to the sun on free and joyous wing, beat the bars of his prison<-age, when captured, till he dies, spuming life on such terms ? So our friend, having once tasted the joy that comes of the large, free exercise of our noblest powers, could never again content herself with the dull, plodding life that suffices for most of us. Or, from a higher plane of thought, might she not have answered one who thought to chide her for her want of moderation : I am set at my post, like a soldier, for a certam duty. Like a true soldier, I will stand at my post. K danger and death confront me there, I will meet them as I ought, eheeifuUy ; I shall never, never desert, my place, or betray the trust.

She had a lofty ambition, — daring yet pure. In the windows . of the picture shops, the reader may some time have seen a print illustrating Longfellow's spirited little poem — ' ' Excelsior. ' ' A youtli with outspread, banner in his hand, is strugghng up the shpj^ery ascent of a huge Alpine mountain. Above hun rise the steeps of mighty glaciers, their summits hid in clouds. Darkness is coming on, — the last rays of the setting sun gild the snowjpeaks far, far above. Just beneath, in a little vale, lies a hamlet,

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and from a cottage by tlie wayside has conie out an old man, wliose silver hairs speak of wisdom and experience, who is warning the youth not to proceed further, cautioning huu against the madness of attempting to scale the mountain. Near to the old man stands his daughter, with shining ringlets falling upon her neck, who modestly but earnestly adds her entreaties to the sage admonitions of the sii-e. But the youth is deaf to both ; and standing proudly upon the cliff above them, with one hand he displays his banner and its ghttering inscription, and with the other points upward to the dizzy heights that rear themselves aloft in wild grandeur. No dangers can daunt, no appeals move him. No cheerful lio;ht of blazino; hearths can detain him from his selfimposed task. In the cold twilight he presses on through a waste ot drifting snows. Next morning he is found by the pious monks of the hospital upon the mountain-top, "lifeless but beautiful," with the cherished banner closely wi-apped about his stiffened form. I am strangely reminded of this pietm-e whenever I think of our departed Mend, — her indomitable, ever forward-pressing spirit, and her early fall. Its significance is, of course, in its symbolic meaning. It is the consecration of youthful heroism, — a heroism deterred by no obstacle, seduced by no blandishments, and intent only upon the execution of a lofty purpose. It is the self-immolation of genius at the shrine of a pui-e ambition.

Somebody has said that it might be well for all po&ts, if nothing more were known of then- lives than appears in their poetry. This may be true of such as Edgar A. Poe, of whom it was especially said, but it is not true of her whose name stands upon the title-page of this volume. No one, in extending his knowledge of her, ever had occasion to lessen his esteem for her as a person, or accept a lower estimate of her chamcter.

I have, not sought to pass an indiscriminate eulogium upon her ; but want of space compels me rather to pass over in silence many admirable ti-aits. Hence I may not sjieak of her steadfast earnestness of pm-pose, her tireless industry, her indomitable energy, —

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whetner teachino; school on cratches, or risiiio; from a sick-bed to fulfil an appomtment to lectm^e ; her ardent love of Nature, that opened every $ense to the perception of the beautiful and sublime in mountain and lake, in stream and dell, in woods and waterfall. She was a true child of natui-e, dhect and smiple in her manners, and impatient of the artificiality and formal etiijuette of fashionable society. In her public ministrations she was earnest yet liberal, zealous but toh^rant. With a large vein of mysticism in her composition, she would have the truths of Religion made clear to the understanding also. She left a name upon which detraction sought in vain to find a blot ; and though much admh'ed; she had too much good sense to be' spoiled by flattery. Beginning life a victim of poverty, in youth a child of suffering, she was lastly, in her adult years, a dispenser of benefits to many a gi-ateful mind. The Writer of these pages fii^st made her acquaintance when he was a young collegian, full of the conceits of knowledge without the reality. Heretofore inclined to despise tlie intellectual capacities of the gentler sex, she quite revolutionized his estunate of woman. It was a surprise to meet so much originality of character, so much mental vigor and independence, where one was wont to expect only subserviency to low social standai'ds and fashionable follies. She was the noblest woman it has been my lot to know, and the impress of her spuit is left too deep upon my memory ever to be obliterated. WTiatever changes may come, however lov7 I may fall, I can never quite forget that, in the unpressibie years of my youth, I knew, and walked for a while in the radiance of, a pure and lofty character. And now that she has closed her earthly career, and is added to that ever-greatenmg host that have passed beyond the dark valley, she is well entitled to the hospitality aQd fellowship of those master spuits " who have labored to impregnate the minds of men with bold and lofty conceptions, who have taught the men of their generation to crave after the unseen, to pine after the ideal, and rise above the visible world of sense." M. E. O.